Karaoke Superstar
by NeoVenus22
Summary: Loki gets bored one night...fabulous onstage antics ensue. [complete]


I wrote this some time ago, then later discovered that Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear would in fact be in a movie together...God loves me. Anywho, it's pretty 'wack', as they say, but I'm hoping you'll find it moderately entertaining. And if you do, let me know! And if you hate me, let me know!  
  
Disclaimer: Loki and Bartleby are the 'intellectual' property of one Kevin Smith. I am not him, seeing as how I'm...well, I'm just not. So suing me would be absolutely fruitless, seeing as how you'd get absolutely nothing.  
  
***  
  
Loki was bored. Being ethereal, you think he'd be having a blast, doing what he wanted, smiting the wicked, hovering in front of second-story windows and scaring people, etc. But no. What Loki wanted, what he really wanted, more than anything, in the depths of his very soul, was to go to a karaoke bar.  
  
"BARTLEBY!"  
  
"What."  
  
"I want to sing."  
  
"Knock yourself out, Sparky."  
  
"In front of people."  
  
"Not in front of me."  
  
"I want to karaoke."  
  
"And I want the Red Sox to win the World Series. Some things just aren't in the cards, Loki."  
  
Bartleby gave him a condescending smile, one that irked Loki straight down to his Hush Puppies, and left the room. The Lifetime Channel was showing another original movie again.  
  
Loki followed him into the living room. Bartleby was sprawled on the couch, enthralled as opening credits ran. Loki sat next to him. A smile spread slowly across his face; he'd seen this movie before. This was essential to his plan. He laughed.  
  
Bartleby gave him a sideways look. "Freak."  
  
"What?" Loki said innocently. "I like Greg Kinnear."  
  
"I reiterate. Freak."  
  
Half an hour into the movie, the characters all went to a bar to drown their sorrows in liquor and karaoke. "Watch this," Loki muttered to his companion, his eyes riveted to the screen, "This scene is pivotal."  
  
"They're singing 'Beat It,'" Bartleby said dryly.  
  
"After this. See, they're singing 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight?' and they're all in love with each other and emotions are flowing, and you can see everything written in their eyes...it's magical."  
  
"Are you gay?"  
  
Loki sighed. "Don't you get it, man? We should go to a karaoke bar."  
  
"To meet women?" Bartleby said, irritation lacing his voice. "To get drunk? To get laid? We can't do any of these things, Lok. You might as well get used to that."  
  
"No, you idiot, to sing our fucking angel hearts out."  
  
Bartleby looked nothing if not irate. "You are not going to talk me into this."  
  
"I can't believe you talked me into this."  
  
The two angels, in standard hoodie-and-trenchcoat uniform, were walking through the doors into a dark, smoky, slightly musty karaoke bar. It was fairly packed for a Wednesday night, or maybe that depends on your opinion of packed. Most of the patrons were gathered around the bar rather than the stage, although a few handfuls were seated at tables. There were collections of friends, labeled by their raucous, drunken laughter, affectionate nicknames, and the need to parade one another onto the stage to be mocked. Loki's countenance, Loki's entire being for that matter, was alight with a joy that could not be expressed in words.  
  
"This is the *shit*!" he exclaimed.  
  
Apparently, it could be expressed in words.  
  
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, I wanna go," Loki said, tugging at the Grigori's sleeve.  
  
"By 'go' I hope to God you mean leave," Bartleby said, looking as though he might be ill at any moment, despite the lack of digestive system. At the worst, dry heaves.  
  
"I wanna go on stage," Loki said, eyes fixated upon the halo of dim yellow light that surrounded the crowd's current victim, who drunkenly warbled "Lady Marmalade", off-key and uncaring.  
  
"I so wish I could imbibe alcohol," Bartleby said. "Damn whoever did this to us."  
  
"That would be us."  
  
"Damn us, then."  
  
"We've pretty much all but ensured that."  
  
Within five minutes the dynamic duo had sat themselves at a table directly in front of the stage, so Loki could gaze in rapture at his makeshift idols. Bartleby bought two mugs of beer and requested two empty mugs, and drummed his fingers on the table, not in rhythm with the song, but in sheer annoyance of his presence in the dive.  
  
After Loki had sipped and spat his whole beer, he finally dared to get up from the table and tentatively approach the machine. Admittedly, he was not drunk enough (so to speak), but his audience more than was, so it evened out in the end. Loki picked up the microphone, swathed in yellow light, selected a song, then launched into a soulful version of "Hey Jude". His vocals were scratchy and mediocre at best, but his performance was powerful and the crowd was in a drunken enough stupor that they might as well have been seeing the real Paul McCartney; they waved their arms back and forth, some producing lighters, joining in in the rousing ending chorus of 'na na na's. Loki took an exaggerated final bow to applause, raucous cheers, whistles and catcalls. He was grinning from ear-to-ear as they pleaded for an encore.  
  
Bartleby hung his head and with a resigned sigh, motioned for the waitress to bring more drinks.  
  
***  
  
Bartleby's head was buried in his arms. He was surrounded by several mugs, filled with regurgitated alcohol--such were the pitfalls of being an angel. Loki was poignantly performing "Can We Still Be Friends?", his fourth straight performance after "Lean On Me" and "Come Sail Away". The crowd loved him more and more as they got drunker, but even in the deepest recesses of his mind, Bartleby had to admit the angel wasn't half bad.  
  
The waitress came over with another frothy mug. "Your friend's pretty good," she said with a warm smile, and sat down.  
  
"My friend's pretty nuts," Bartleby answered.  
  
"Can I ask what's up with the beer? I mean, I know I shouldn't say anything, since you're paying for it all and being really nice about it, but it's a little weird to drink it and then spit it out again. If the beer is that bad, why do you keep ordering more?"  
  
"If I'm paying, does it really matter?" Bartleby said.  
  
She paused. "No, it doesn't, but I'm still curious."  
  
"I can't drink alcohol. I can taste it, but I can't swallow it. Pitfall of the job."  
  
"Wow, you must be really dedicated to your job to get a mouthful of the house's finest lager and not choke it down," the waitress said with a touch of admiration in her voice.  
  
Bartleby opened his mouth to answer. He'd meant he physically couldn't do it, but she had misinterpreted. He thought better of it and shrugged with a noncommittal smile. "Yeah, well, I love what I do."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
Bartleby jerked his thumb at the stage. "Follow this peckerwood jackass around."  
  
Loki saw the two looking over in his direction, and enthusiastically motioned for them to join him on stage. "Hey, Bart, c'mon! We can do a duet!"  
  
The crowd applauded enthusiastically, and began to stomp their feet and chant, "Do it! Duet! Do it! Duet!"  
  
Bartleby groaned loudly and sunk into his chair. The waitress smiled prettily at him and pulled him up. "C'mon, let's hear what you've got."  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"I'll give you the next round on the house," she promised.  
  
Bartleby had made a lot of stupid mistakes in the course of his existence, such as playing sidekick to the Angel of Death here, talking his friend out of their jobs, and coming here tonight, but he wasn't stupid enough to turn down free beer, even if he couldn't swallow it. "Fine, fine." He shook his head resignedly and joined Loki onstage, where they joined in a duet of "Ebony and Ivory", with Loki as McCartney for the second time in his short yet illustrious karaoke career, and Bartleby as an extremely reluctant Michael Jackson.  
  
"Grab your penis!" Loki hissed, even though "Ebony and Ivory" was the least likely of any Michael Jackson performance to earn the crotch-grabbing dance antics.  
  
"I don't have a penis."  
  
"Then grab the area where it would be located! You took anatomy in college!"  
  
"I didn't even go to college! Where are you getting this information from?"  
  
"I'm trying to establish a biography for us, in case a book is ever released about our exploits."  
  
"Yes, our exploits in a *karaoke bar*," Bartleby said irritably. "You have delusions of grandeur. These lights are way too bright."  
  
The applause when they finished was even louder than it had been for all of Loki's performances. Bartleby felt a tingle in his spine. He chalked it up to appendicitis or some other unfortunate ailment, but even so, he decided to sing another song..  
  
"What have we got?"  
  
***  
  
As the night wore on, Bartleby and Loki had swallowed God knew how many beers, and plowed their way through a variety of songs, most of which were Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls fare. The crowd was finally dwindling as it got lighter outside, and woozy audience members dared to approach the duo to congratulate them on their spectacular performances.  
  
"Last week, this girl came on, and you could totally see her nipples through her dress," the guy who had been torturing them with Patty LaBelle when they'd come in said. "And you guys kicked her ass."  
  
"Thanks, man!" Loki said enthusiastically.  
  
Bartleby's Grigori Sense was tingling. Figuring that the guy had fairly good taste, he decided to pay him back a favor. As the man tried to pass, Bartleby grabbed his arm and said discreetly, "Your wife knows you're cheating on her."  
  
The guy stared. "Dude! How'd you--"  
  
Loki stepped in. "He's psychic."  
  
"And you're psycho," Bartleby said to his companion. "We cover all spectrums."  
  
"Ohhhhhh, psychic," the man drawled, nodding knowingly. Booze had etched itself into the veins of his eyes. "Gotcha. Thanks, bro."  
  
As he wobbled off, Loki turned to Bartleby urgently. "Are you trying to destroy my career?" he gasped. "The guy was a *fan*, and you almost scared him off with your stupid ethereal chatter!"  
  
"I was doing him a favor! *Because* he was a fan."  
  
"Don't fucking ruin this for me," Loki threatened.  
  
"Or you'll do what? Smite me?"  
  
"You know what? Maybe I'll do just that!"  
  
"Bring it, angel boy!" Bartleby taunted, hopping back and forth in front of his companion. Loki, in retaliation, put up his dukes.  
  
"Dude! The singing guys are gonna fight!" one of the exiting patrons said. The pretty waitress, upon hearing this, rushed over. "For two guys who didn't actually drink any beer, you guys are being pretty stupid."  
  
Bartleby stopped hopping. Loki put down his dukes.  
  
"What are you talking about?" Loki said loudly. "We drank so much beer! We are so tanked right now!" Bartleby cast his friend a bemused look, and Loki elbowed him sharply.  
  
"I'm not playing your stupid game," Bartleby said.  
  
"TANKED, yo!" Loki answered.  
  
Bartleby rolled his eyes. "We'll be taking this outside," he said to the waitress quietly.  
  
She shrugged. "Whatever."  
  
Bartleby grabbed the shoulder of Loki's coat and dragged his smaller friend outside. "I don't know what the hell you're even trying to pull off, but you're only coming off as a total fucking idiot. Which come to think of it, isn't that different from usual."  
  
"Fuck you, dude, I'm just trying to spice things up."  
  
"With karaoke? Fucking Christ, Lok, that's pretty lame."  
  
"I AM A KARAOKE SUPERSTAR!" Loki yelped, and started to run down the street, shrieking the lyrics to "Beat It". Bartleby shook his head and sighed.  
  
"If you need me, I'll be home," he yelled down the street. "And I don't have any money for bail, so if you're going to be an ass, do it in a place where you're less likely to get arrested!"  
  
*FIN* 


End file.
